New Zealand's Pacific-style architecture and tradition of light timber buildings will be showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale this year.

Auckland architect David Mitchell, who has been appointed creative director, said it would be New Zealand's first entry in the world architectural exhibition, which opens on June 4.

The display, in Palazzo Pisani Santa Marina, will feature a purpose-built whatarangi - a one poled-pataka (storehouse) - with an illuminated model of the Auckland War Memorial Museum inside it.

It would also include a model tower using the post-tensioned timber construction technique devised at the University of Canterbury and used to build the College of Creative Arts at Massey University's Wellington campus.

Also featuring will be Auckland's new art gallery and Christchurch's cardboard cathedral which Mitchell described as a very Pacific building - lightweight and flexible.

"We're going to show off some of the most unsung architecture in the world, our Pacific architecture. It's an architecture made out of poles, beams and panels and not out of heaps of rocks, bricks and tiles."

The Institute of Architects said it was seeking sponsors to support the exhibition.